Music Style Blue Wave

Musical Influences David Sylvian, Morphine, Jeff Buckley, The Church,Nina simone

Similar Artists Roxy Music, Japan, Peter Murphy, Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone, P.J.Harvey, Concrete Blonde,

Group Members Monique Ortiz- vocals,fretless bass,organ,baritone guitar, tenor dobro. Jerome Deupree- drums and percussion. Dana Colley- baritone & tenor saxes, bass clarinet, melodica, samples. Russ Gershon- tenor & baritone saxes. Gordon Whithers- cello.Previous players include:Jim Moran- guitar ,piano, tenor dobro. Jonah Sacks-cello. Larry Dersch- drums. Shawn devlin-drums. Jason Kronick-drums .Will Wrynn-drums. Dave Millar-drums.

Instruments vocals, fretless bass, baritone guitar, tenor dobro, cello, saxes, drums, piano

Albums Stopline, C.B.G.B. Bootleg, 3:15 ep, Jerkoff ep

Press Reviews In Music We Trust (July, 2003) Bourbon Princess Black Feather Wings (Accurate Records) By: Scott D. Lewis My, what an ideal band name. We'd expect a Bourbon Princess to be majestic and messy, capable of exhibiting grandeur and poise, but equally likely to take a header down the stone steps. Of course, when our Bourbon Princess reached the bottom and got up, she'd be sure to brush the creases out of her gown and thrust her bloodied nose back in the air. A vehicle for the provocative storms gently gusting out of the mouth of sultry singer Monique Ortiz, Bourbon Princess has released an oddly arresting sophomore effort. Those familiar with the criminally overlooked Diane Izzo or Antietam's Tara Key (whose first solo album happens to be titled Bourbon County) will recognize and appreciate the terrain laid out on *Black Feather Wings.* It is stark, hollowed-out and swollen with as much tragedy as beauty. Ortiz sounds like she could be Patti Smith's detox-hating daughter or PJ Harvey's sister slammed in solitary confinement. Her literate, colorful narrative and skewed reflections slide out of her mouth like thick opium smoke, and the minimal, jazz-rock band (featuring Morphine sax man Dana Colley and drummer Jerome Deupree ) keeps things moving along without ever getting in the way. Several songs pay homage to Lou Reed's cool detachment while a few others, especially Jerkoff, bring Bryan Ferry's slushy suave to mind. While it's certainly not the most immediately accessible album out there, it is certainly one of the most interesting, involving and compelling pieces of sonic art to arrive in some time. (http://www.inmusicwetrust.com/articles/61r14.html) June 19, 2003 BOURBON PRINCESS REIGNS The sound of Monique Ortiz's world changed the moment she first heard Morphine. It was 1996 and for Ortiz, a former New Wave Goth girl who had grown up playing the bass guitar in suburban Pennsylvania, the exotic atmospheres of Morphine's music sounded like an epiphany. What struck her, she remembers, is "how different it was, and the mood of it. "It seemed like something a lot of us wished we could do, and we couldn't figure it out. They were onto a concept that I really wanted to pursue, which was [mostly] guitarless rock, where the bass was the focus or the horns were the focus." That's all the reason Ortiz needed to leave her home state. She headed for Morphine's birthplace of Cambridge, and began developing an approach not only indebted to that band, but also to influences as diverse as David Sylvian (singer for the art-punk outfit Japan), and Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry. Later, Ortiz discovered jazz singer Nina Simone. Ortiz, who plays the Zeitgeist Gallery June 20, recently released her second album, "Black Feather Wings," under her stage name, Bourbon Princess. The disc is out on the Cambridge-based Accurate Records label. The perfect soundtrack to a late night of low lights and smoky ruminations, thanks to its author's equally smoky, contralto vocals and Beat-inspired lyrics, it is also a date with destiny. The disc features ex-Morphine saxophonist Dana Colley, original Morphine drummer Jerome Deupree, and was recorded at Morphine's Hi-N-Dry studio. The creative spirit of that band's deceased singer-bassist Mark Sandman also looms large. "It's no secret that these guys are some of my biggest musical heroes," Ortiz says. "Even now, I have moments where it hits me and I go, `My God, I actually did it - I made a record with Dana Colley and Jerome Deupree.' I'm honored." Recording with them, as well as multi-instrumentalist Jim Moran, was a valuable learning experience, she says. While the ambience of the music sounds unmistakably like Morphine, to anyone who has attended her shows over the past several years, "Black Feather Wings" is also very much a snapshot of Bourbon Princess's own dark-hued dreams. "I wasn't trying to copy Morphine," says Ortiz, whose band features a rotating cast of musicians, including Accurate Records founder and Either/Orchestra saxophonist Russ Gershon. "But there's really no avoiding sounding like people that you really like. And this is a kind of rock that should be pursued and explored. The sound shouldn't die just because Mark isn't with us anymore." For her next album, Ortiz envisions other collaborations as a way to explore tones and textures in her music even she hasn't discovered yet. As a female artist who doesn't fit the Lilith Fair-folk or mall-pop molds, the future appears wide open. "I cringe when people use that (singer-songwriter) terminology with me, because I know what they're thinking and I'm not that," she says. "Maybe there's somebody else in the country or the world that sounds like this, but I haven't heard it yet. So I have the feeling that I'm on the right track." Author(s): JONATHAN PERRY Date: June 19, 2003 Page: 9 Section: Calendar TOWNONLINE.COM CD reviews: Dan fan Wednesday, June 4, 2003 Reviews of CDs by Steely Dan, The Thorns, Bourbon Princess and The Lovin' Spoonful Bourbon Princess "Black Feather Wings" ( Accurate) This Boston-based alt-rock band remains in a groove all its own. It's switched from trio to quartet format, and the only original member left is leader-singer-bassist-writer Monique Ortiz, with her deep, warm, husky voice that momentarily wanders off-key. Her songs, none of which are the work of a melodic genius, are truly strange, and mostly concern disturbed people in distressed situations. A bored slacker sings about life, a weary junkie tells a story of an overdose. It's sounds like a mix between the punk sensibilities of Television and the arty dreariness of Nick Cave, at least until it all jumpstarts into material about love and hate ("I'll Take a Cab"), and even a creepy talking cat ("Sunset"). This is dreamy, nightmarish, sinister and oddly compelling. Listen to it twice before making a judgment. B - Ed Symkus (http://www.townonline.com/arts_lifestyle/tv_music_radio/art_revacdsas06042003.htm) fmSound.net Volume 3, No. 13 Updated 7/1/03 Your source for music reviews, interviews, news and all that noise. A FilmMonthly publication. Bourbon Princess, Black Feather Wings Grade: A- Wow. To be completely honest I was so not expecting Bourbon Princess to sound like this. Bourbon Princess is Monique Ortiz—a songwriter, singer and bassist who just oozes through the speakers like warm, sticky molasses on a hot summer day. Her voice is intoxicating, mesmerizing and sexy all at the same time…quite a feat indeed. From the sassy album opener “Stretcher” to the rougher “The Spider Sings” to the bluesy ballad “One of These Days,” with one listen Black Feather Wings will have you in its snare and won’t let go for a very long time. But it’s not like you’re going to want it to anyways. —C.E. Pelc (http://www.fmsound.net/IndieScene/Indie%20Mailbag/Indie%20Mailbag.html) JULY 2003 BOURBON PRINCESS Accurate Records Black Feather Wings 12 songs The instant I heard this CD (all right, maybe eight seconds into it) I knew I was hearing the singular sound of Dana Colley's saxophone. As a diehard Morphine lover, this album was nothing short of miraculous, sounding less like Morphine part two and more like Morphine: The Next Generation. But this album is actually the work of Monique Ortiz, and it's merely featuring Dana Colley and Jerome Deupree (plus the multifaceted Jim Moran on guitar and a whole lot else), despite how much it sounds like... like that other band I've already mentioned three times. I can't help but expect this CD to be held up against that other band's historic catalog, and as much of a fan of that other band as I am, I have to say this is an excellent record. Smoky, sultry, smooth and sensual, the music ebbs and flows around Ortiz's lyrical labyrinth, and any and all fans of Morphine would be doing themselves a disservice if they let this record slip by. (Jesse Thomas) (http://www.thenoise-boston.com/cd_reviews/232.asp) TUESDAY, JUL. 08 2003 Mystery achievers Maybe Baby and Bourbon Princess shed light on darkness BY TED DROZDOWSKI (excerpt) LIKE WHAT MATTERS, Bourbon Princess’s Black Feather Wings (Accurate) was recorded at Hi-N-Dry, a fifth-floor aerie in an old Cambridge industrial building that’s more like a comfy loft apartment than a studio. The place’s warmth and atmosphere translates to the recordings made there, which date back to Morphine’s Cure for Pain (Rykodisc) and include recent albums by folksingers Karaugh Brown and Kris Delmhorst and rockers the Twinemen. The latter band’s nucleus is vocalist Laurie Sargent and ex-Morphine members Dana Colley and Billy Conway. Colley and Conway tend to take turns manning the studio’s controls: Conway produced What Matters, for example, and Colley, along with Monique Ortiz, produced Black Feather Wings. Bourbon Princess is in essence Ortiz, who writes the material, sings it, and plays fretless bass. The name refers not to any predilection for Jack Daniel’s but to a consort of the Marquis de Sade, the Princess of Bourbon. "Sometimes it’s really annoying, because I can’t enjoy a whiskey without somebody saying, ‘Bourbon princess, eh?’ " The name does create a sense of mystery, and so does Ortiz’s music. But it’s deeper and darker than that of Maybe Baby — closer to the poetic "low rock" of Morphine. At times, in numbers like "The Spider Sings" and "The Dream," Ortiz sings with long, deep phrases that recall Morphine’s late vocalist, Mark Sandman. And there is a connection. Ortiz was living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the mid ’90s and going through a difficult period. Her band, a new-romantic-inspired group, had just broken up; worse, her brother had died, sending her family into turmoil. His passing occurred just before Ortiz went off to college, so she soon found herself alone and miserable and trying to find her own way out of an emotional pit. Morphine offered her a rope ladder. "Amid all this other stuff, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do musically," she says. "I knew it wasn’t going to be a band with a guitar, but I didn’t know what it would be. And then I saw the movie Spanking the Monkey. I heard the soundtrack and loved the band. I didn’t know what instruments, exactly, were playing, but I knew they didn’t have a guitar." DON'T FRET: it was Morphine who led Monique Ortiz out of emotional turmoil and into new musical terrain. The music for Spanking the Monkey was provided by Morphine. Shortly after she figured that out, Ortiz learned that the band had a show scheduled at the Trocadero in Philadelphia and determined to go. "You know how sometimes music will just hit you at the right time and make you really examine what you’re doing? I realized I was going to change my life at that Morphine concert." After the show, she went behind the club and met Sandman as the band were loading out. "I don’t know if he was just striking up a conversation or had some kind of inkling, but he asked me, ‘Are you a musician?’ I ended up telling him where I was at, and he tilted his head and looked at me kind of sideways, all chiseled in that Sandman way, and said, ‘Sounds like you need to relocate.’ " Sandman advised her to check out Cambridge, and in 1996 she did move there. What’s more, she pulled together a dream line-up for Black Feather Wings. Colley plays saxophone all over the album, and the drummer is Jerome Deupree, Morphine’s original sticksman. They’re joined by guitarist/pianist Jim Moran. Deupree’s swinging, spare style of propulsion and Colley’s low-toned sonorities make comparisons with Morphine inevitable. But careful listening reveals that Ortiz has evolved her own style as a talented poet since her self-released 2000 recording Stopline. Her songs, whether spirited kissoffs like "I’ll Take a Cab" or pure narrative like the post-one-night-stand "Early Train," are full of vibrant detail. The original blues tune "Careful What You Wish For" reveals her true range as a singer: Ortiz likes to keep her voice low for most numbers, and that adds to the sultry ambiance, but on "Careful What You Wish For" she unveils her upper register, with delicate phrasing and subtle control. Although Black Feather Wings is an excellent album, Bourbon Princess are best straight up — live. That’s where Ortiz’s stories get a boost from her energy as a performer, and where her musicianship is on fiery display. As she relates intricate tales like the bleak overdose narrative "Stretcher," she negotiate effortlessly the twists of the fretless bass. The instrument’s slithery tones work almost as a second vocalist, harmonizing with her vocals as Deupree keeps things afloat. You wouldn’t know it from watching her, but playing a fretless bass while singing is, as Ortiz admits, no easy task. "I find it really, really hard, and I’ve worked really hard to be able to do it. But I can’t even listen to a fretted instrument now. The fretless has just become such a big part of what I do." (http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/music/cellars/documents/02985778.htm) BOURBON PRINCESS Zeitgeist 11/07/02 Monique Ortiz explains that when you dream your teeth are falling out, it's a sign of stress. She adjusts her Kubicki bass and smirks at drummer Larry Dersch (Binary System). With a low chuckle and a wolfish grin, she sings "On the Inside," a hypnotic confessional ballad with an infectious and disturbing chorus. "I'm running as fast as I can into another day/I'm kicking and screaming but only on the inside…" The song is anchored by chunky, throbbing bass, sails into a heart-stopping wail, and ends with Monique plaintively whistling. A beat of silence, then the enthralled audience goes crazy. This girl can play. Bourbon Princess is about unapologetic carnal urges, bleeding emotional wounds, and keeping your chin up. At once passionate and aloof, Monique Ortiz falls somewhere between Mark Sandman and Annie Lennox, her bluesy croons complementing her powerful bass. A strangely dynamic act, Bourbon Princess will find their audience with fans of Morphine, PJ Harvey, Soul Coughing, and Leonard Cohen. Minimalistic bohemian voodoo, baby. (Lexi) (http://www.thenoise-boston.com/live_reviews/227.asp)

Additional Info info@bourbonprincess.com

Location Boston, MA - USA

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